Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. It is the property of the talented Masashi Kishimoto.

It was nice to be able to think of her this way, without the guilt of course. He never thought he would fall for her, his former student. Never. But, it had happened.

He had tried to hide it at first. For God's sake, she was fourteen years younger than him! She was fully grown now though; ready to make her own choices.

He couldn't really remember how it had all happened. It seemed like the feelings had just appeared out of nowhere. One day, she was his student…the next, well, he was smitten. He didn't know if that word was often used to describe a fully grown man, or even a famous assassin, really. The one and only Copy Ninja was smitten with a girl. He laughed at the irony of it all.

She and her fellow classmates had been jounin for some time. Naruto and Sasuke had become ANBU members, as he had always expected of them, while Sakura continued her education through medical training. Naruto had Hinata, and Sasuke had Ino, but Sakura seemed to have no-one. And Kakashi, well, he had not had someone for a long time.

Maybe it was his destiny to fall in love with her. At least he liked to think of it that way.

One day, he conjured up enough courage to tell her. It had taken him long enough. For some reason he was able to kill easily, but ironically he couldn't find himself able to express his feelings.

When the time came to tell her, it didn't exactly go the way he had planned. Kakashi had memorized everything, down to the very last word, but when the time came, he forgot. It was one of the most awkward moments of his life. There they were, sitting at the Ichiraku stand, in complete silence. Kakashi half-wished that Naruto would come bursting out of nowhere, blabbering on about something. That didn't happen of course. Naruto was never there when you actually wanted him around.

Sakura looked ready to leave, and as Kakashi realized this he felt something that he had never felt to this extent before. It couldn't have been….fear? No, he had never felt so afraid. In the nervousness of the whole situation, Kakashi did not realize that he had let all of his feelings slip out until he saw Sakura's eyes open wide in shock. What had he done?! Her response seemed to take a life-time, but then finally she spoke up.

"I've been waiting for you to say that." And Kakashi had about cried out with joy.

That had been a year ago from today, and now they were a week away from their wedding. He never thought they would get this far, even though he had hoped beyond belief.

When Naruto and Sasuke found out, he was sure they would somehow protest in some way or form. Although they had been shocked at first, a natural reaction, they had kept their distance and Kakashi appreciated that. Both Naruto and Sasuke knew what love does to one's perception.

Kakashi gazed at the sleeping form of his lovely Sakura who had fallen asleep on his futon while he had been working. Hah, working. He hadn't done much of that since the wedding date was decided. Kakashi figured that would continue for quite some time.

As he picked up her lithe form to take her back home, all he could think about was the day when they would finally become one. Hatake Kakashi and his wife, Hatake Sakura. That had a nice ring to it. Perhaps someday another Hatake would enter the world, but until then, Kakashi was more than satisfied.